The Wild Rose

I’m cur­rently about 25% of the way through Jen­nifer Donnelly’s book, The Wild Rose.  It’s the third book in a tril­ogy.  I dis­cov­ered the first book, The Tea Rose, a few years ago when I was look­ing for some­thing to read on a road trip to visit Jason’s sis­ter and brother-in-law.  It was a won­der­ful book.  It’s his­tor­i­cal fic­tion.  That’s not usu­ally the type of book I would choose for myself, but the char­ac­ters in this book were won­der­ful.  I found myself prac­ti­cally addicted to read­ing it.  When it was over, I was really dis­ap­pointed to be done.  For­tu­nately, I found the next book in the tril­ogy, The Win­ter Rose.  Unfor­tu­nately, it wasn’t as breath­tak­ing as the first book.  It was good, but I wouldn’t describe it as won­der­ful or amazing.

Then, I waited.  And I waited.  I waited some more.  Finally, the third book in the tril­ogy was released.  It came out in August of this year.  You may be won­der­ing WHY in the world I have not fin­ished this book if I waited so impa­tiently for it for so long.  Well, the rea­son is that I’m wor­ried it won’t be as good as I want it to be.  I would love for it to be as good as or bet­ter than the first book.  I read on a reg­u­lar basis, and I used to be a vora­cious reader.  It’s rare to have the feel­ing of sat­is­fac­tion and enjoy­ment that I had after read­ing The Tea Rose.  Those books are few and far between.

When The Wild Rose arrived, instead of jump­ing in to it, I bought the first two books, too.  Then, I spent a cou­ple weeks read­ing through both of them to refresh my mem­ory of the books and the char­ac­ters in them.  When it was time to start The Wild Rose, I just couldn’t do it.  Finally, I decided to just jump in and get started.  So, like I said, I’m about 25% of the way through The Wild Rose, and so far it’s nice.  It’s fine.  It’s good, but it’s not The Tea Rose, and it’s hard for me to let go of my expectations.